Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Temple Mount

Showing posts with label Temple Mount. Show all posts

Monday, June 03, 2013

Delusional Abbas says that Israel plans to demolish Al Aqsa Mosque

Yesterday, everyone's favorite "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas pushed some more crazed conspiracy theories
which are perfectly acceptable in mainstream Arabic discourse and that are rarely reported in the West.

In an interview with Saudi Arabia's Al Watan, Abbas spoke of the "imminent danger faced by the Al-Aqsa Mosque," claiming that excavations carried out by Israel on the courtyard and under the foundations threatens the mosque with collapse. Abbas bitterly complained about the "fanatic Jewish extremists" being allowed to enter the Temple Mount "to practice their religion," explaining that it is all part of "an evil and dangerous scheme to destroy [Al Aqsa] and establish the alleged Temple."

This is not the first time Abbas has pushed nutty conspiracy theories. In no less a venue than the UN, Abbas claimed that Jews are training wild dogs to attack Arabs and releasing wild pigs to wreak havoc on their fields.

Then, as now, the Western media ignored Abbas' lunatic rants. They are emotionally invested in Abbas as a reasonable peacemaker fighting stoically against the extremist Netanyahu government. Noting that Abbas embraces the most insane anti-Israel conspiracy theories simply does not fit that narrative, so it is not reported.

After all, no sane person can insist Israel give up more concessions and sign agreements with someone who does not have a basic grasp of reality.

Abbas' insanity must be hush-hushed, for the good of the Middle East.

"Israeli bride performs Talmudic rituals" near Cotton Gate of Temple Mount

A Jewish bride, apparently on her wedding day, decided to go as close as possible to the Temple Mount to say Psalms.

Along with some friends, she walked down the Cotton Market in Jerusalem during a Muslim prayer time when the market is nearly empty. She was stopped, and protected, at the entrance to the Cotton Gate by Israeli police.

Arabic media is reporting that she performed "Talmudic rituals" and that this was an "extreme provocation." (They also called the bride and her small entourage "settlers.")

Apparently, Muslims can whip out their prayer rugs and worship wherever they want, but Jews don't share that right.

A Christian-Jewish group condemned the peaceful event as well.

In fact, according to Sheikh Nageh Pkarat, any prayers in the area of the holiest spot in Judaism is a "violation of international law" since it is a place for Muslim prayers only.

Pkarat also said that Jewish prayers in the area are against the Jewish religion as well.

It is always nice to have an expert on Judaism around to be authoritatively quoted in the Arab media.

Abbas calls Jews visiting Temple Mount "attacks against Al Aqsa"

The "moderate" president of the Palestinian Authority has made it crystal clear that he would not tolerate freedom of religion in his purported "state."

At his opening speech at the PLO Executive Committee meeting last night, Abbas said that "attacks on the Al Aqsa Mosque cannot be tolerated."

Abbas added that it is unacceptable for such "attacks" to continue, and that "if Israel is dreaming as such daily attacks that attack the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy sites can change the situation on the ground they are disillusioned."

"East Jerusalem as our capital, and Al-Aqsa is ours, and the Church of the Resurrection is ours, and we will not allow them" to perform these "attacks."

Abbas ended by saying "we call upon the Arab and Islamic countries and the international community in general to act to stop these tragedies perpetrated in the name of the Israeli occupation."

Keep in mind that during Jordan's brief period of sovereignty over the Old City, Jews were barred from praying not only on the Temple Mount but at the Kotel as well. Not Israelis - Jews.

This is the "status quo" that Abbas would consider ideal, along with a Judenrein Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and a Tomb of Rachel that is converted into a mosque.

Yes, under any "peace plan" this most moderate of all Palestinian Arab leaders in history would grudgingly allow limited busloads of Jews to occasionally visit some specific sites for short periods of time, but inevitably those visits would cause riots and he would stop even this allowance. For "security" reasons.

Every clear thinking person knows that this is the best that can be expected under a Palestinian Arab state. Yet no "human rights" group seems to mind that freedom of religion for Jews would simply not be tolerated under the Palestinian Arab state they believe is the key to "peace."

And the Western media will refuse to publish that their "moderate" hero is openly lying about peaceful visits to Judaism's holiest site and trying to get them banned, today.

"Settlers storming Al Aqsa, the height of desecration"

The Al Aqsa Foundation keeps trying to come up with new ways of describing the horror of Jews peacefully touring the Temple Mount.

The Al-Aqsa Foundation reports that anger prevails at the Al Aqsa Mosque and its surroundings, since the early morning, where about 180 settlers, in groups ranging from 25-40 settlers, broke into and desecrated the Al-Aqsa Mosque gate, and organized tours of the property.

In a remarkable development the settlers several times led Talmudic and Biblical rites and prayers of especially near the fence to the east of Al Aqsa, at the the door of mercy, and it was the height of the desecration of al-Aqsa mosque, when a group of 20 settlers, standing at the "door of the string" inside and towards the Dome of the Rock then expeditiously performed Biblical rites where they lied down (prostrated themselves?), coupled with loud shouts...A state of alert was declared among the guards, who seemed angry because of settlers violations.

I'm sure they weren't happy with this youth wearing a Yom Yerushalayim shirt, either.

Look how violent they are as they desecrate this place that was all but ignored by Muslims a mere century ago!

Meanwhile, visiting the Har HaBayit is a very appropriate task for Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day.I made a quick Jerusalem poster for Twitter yesterday:

Did Jews rule Jerusalem in 614 CE?

One of the reasons given for today's Lag B'Omer celebrations is to commemorate the Bar Kochba revolt of 132-136 CE. Most Jews believe that this was the last time of Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel before the 1948 War of Independence.

However, there may have been another brief period of Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem, many centuries later.

In "A History of the Jewish People" by Haim Hillel be-Sasson, we learn:

In the last days of Byzantine rule over the Land of Israel the Jews made an attempt to exploit the rivalry between the powers ruling the orient - Persia, Byzantium and Rome - in order to regain their political independence. For hundreds of years they had repeatedly hoped that the redemption of the Jewish people would come with the conquest of Palestine by Persia; and now the time seemed to have arrived. At the beginning of the seventh century, the Persians set out on their conquests in the East, and in the year 614 they reached the borders of Palestine. Their approach set off a powerful messianic fermentation, which is reflected in several works written at the time whose theme is the Redemption. The Armenian historian Sebeos reported (Chapter XXIV): 'As the Persians approached Palestine, the remnants of the Jewish nation rose against the Christians, joined the Persians and made common cause with them.' The Jews assisted the invaders materially in their conquest of Galilee. From there the invading army turned to Caesarea and continued its conquests down to Apollonia, then eastwards to Lydda and from there to Jerusalem, which was captured in May 614. Jewish forces also took part in the conquest of Jerusalem. Sophronius, a contemporary monk who lived near Bethlehem, wrote in a poem: 'God-seeking strangers and citizens of the city [Jerusalem]; . When they faced the Persians and their Hebrew friends/Hastened to close the city gates.'

The Persians handed Jerusalem over to Jewish settlers, who proceeded with the expulsion of the Christians and the removal of their churches. At the head of Jerusalem stood a leader whom we know only by his messianic name: Nehemiah ben Hushiel ben Ephraim ben Joseph. The sacrificial cult may even have been resumed. Jewish rule in Jerusalem lasted three years. In 617 there was a reversal of Persian policy. For reasons that are not sufficiently clear, the Persians made peace with the Christians. The Jews, on the other hand, did not, and the Persian authorities were forced to fight them: 'And they waged war against the saints and brought down many of them. and Shiroi [the king of Persia] stabbed Nehemiah ben Hushiel. and sixteen of the just were killed together with him (Book of Zerubabel, page 101).

There are other accounts of this episode as well.

The Jews saw another opportunity to take back Jerusalem in the early seventh century, just before the rise of Islam. The Persians conquered what had been Judea from the Byzantine Empire, capturing Jerusalem in 614 CE. The Armenian historian Sebeos described the Jews' reaction to the Persian campaign: "As the Persians approached Palestine, the remnants of the Jewish nation rose against the Christians, joined the Persians and made common cause with them." The Persians even installed a Jew, Nehemiah ben Hushiel ben Ephraim ben Joseph, to rule the city.

But this regime was short-lived. Hoping to accommodate their Roman Christian subjects, the Persians apparently withdrew their support for any Jewish self-government. Moreover, in 629 CE the Byzantine emperor Heraclius reconquered Jerusalem, where the former anti-Jewish edicts were again renewed. The city's new rulers banned public recital of Judaism's core prayer, the Shema, and executed many Jews or evicted them to neighboring countries. Five years later, the Byzantines required all the empire's Jews to become baptized. This harsh regime did not last long, however, for in 638 CE Muslim armies from Arabia conquered Jerusalem, thus opening a whole new chapter in the Holy City's history.

Thirteen hundred years would pass between the last Jewish self-government in Jerusalem in 614 and the establishment of a Jewish national home under the British that would later become the State of Israel. During that time, Jerusalem would remain the center of Jewish national aspirations as well as religious ritual. But the quest to return to Jerusalem was not left as an eschatological task for the distant future. Jews returned to Jerusalem whenever the bans on Jewish settlement were lifted; thus many Jews came back to the Holy City after the second caliph of Islam defeated the Byzantines, establishing a new Jewish Quarter that was populated until the First Crusade. Jerusalem's main Jewish synagogue in the first decades of Islamic rule, known as "the Cave," was located under the Temple Mount, at the point along the Western MA closest to the Holy of Holies.

The Jewish Encyclopedia does not mention this, however.

"Open Zion" publishes pure anti-Israel lies (updated)

"Open Zion," Peter Beinart's "commitment to debate and embrace of a Zionism that's both nuanced and heartfelt" at the Daily Beast, has once again descended into publishing baldfaced anti-Israel lies.

Anna Lekas Miller, someone with no credentials as far as I can tell ("a freelance writer in Brooklyn covering the Middle East, Arab America, feminism and activism"), rehashes the most absurd Arab rumors about the riots in the Temple Mount last week and Beinart doesn't deign to fact check any of them:

Last night, a march of extremist Israeli settlers took over the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, filling the streets with Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers enforcing a strictly “Jews only” policy on the streets of the Muslim Quarter that put the nearly 30,000 Palestinian residents of the Muslim Quarter under curfew until the march was over.

I can find no news stories about this incident, so I cannot say for certain that it is not true. But read on to see how much credibility Anna has...

This follows a week of attacks of this nature on Al-Aqsa Mosque—the third most holy site in Islam just a few meters away from the Dome of the Rock, the iconic golden crowning glory of Jerusalem.. Under normal circumstances, though anyone can enter the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, only practicing Muslims are allowed to enter the inside of Al-Aqsa Mosque. However, in recent years extremist Israeli settlers—protected by IDF soldiers or Israeli police—have stormed the mosque, claiming that it should be destroyed so that the Third Temple can be erected in its place.

As far as I know, no Jews ever enter the mosque, except for police during riots. The Jews peacefully walk in the outdoor areas of the Temple Mount that they are allowed to by Jewish law.

However, every time they do that, Arab media characterizes it as "settlers storming the Al Aqsa Mosque," and Miller simply believes them.

Recently, due to heightened tensions leading to violent clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli soldiers in the West Bank that many Israelis fear could lead to a Palestinian uprising, the attacks on the Al Aqsa Mosque compound have intensified.

Again, there have been no attacks on the mosque, except when the Arabs start rioting first.

The most recent string of attacks started on Sunday when an Israeli soldier threw a young Muslim Palestinian woman’s Qu’ran on the floor, trampling it until it was destroyed.

Never happened. This was a rumor that was started by Muslim women who were apparently blocking the Moroccan Gate to stop any non-Muslims from entering the Mount; when police tried to move them away they started going crazy - and this false rumor started. However, Miller has added a flourish of "trampling it until it was destroyed" - originally, the rumor was just that it was kicked.

A few days later on Wednesday, eight Israeli settlers accompanied by soldiers stormed the mosque, interrupting the worshippers during prayers and violently ripping off a woman’s hijab—a traditional head covering required for worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

As far as I can tell, this never happened either.

On Friday—International Women’s Day—dozens of Israeli policemen once again stormed the mosque as Palestinian worshippers gathered for noon prayers. According to Israeli Police Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, Israeli police entered the mosque when Palestinians who had seen them outside the mosque threw rocks and two firebombs at them. The police then responded with teargas and stun grenades, pushing women aside and injuring one journalist, turning what would have otherwise been peaceful Friday prayers into violent clashes.

The Muslims started the violence, as always. Here's a video taken by the Muslims themselves, showing them throwing chairs and other projectiles at the police from inside their supposedly holy spot:

The article gets even worse in its characterization of the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Of course, Miller cannot be bothered to note that these were Jewish holy places two millennia before Mohammed was born.

In other words, Open Zion decided to publish a pack of lies, written by someone with no apparent expertise, parroting absurd rumors from the most extreme Islamist sites, without even a modicum of fact-checking or journalistic ethics.

(h/t JM)

UPDATE: Open Zion published a number of corrections, but kept a number of lies - for example, no one said the Quran was "destroyed" except Ms. Miller (even the Al aqsa Foundation just said it was "kicked"), and she kept the claims of "settlers storming the mosque".

"Israel planning to demolish Al Aqsa before Obama visit"

The nutty rumors continue in the Arabic press.

This one, in both Islamic Jihad's Palestine Today and Hamas' Felesteen, says that "the occupation is accelerating efforts to demolish Al-Aqsa Mosque with U.S. blessing" before President Obama's planned visit to Israel on March 20.

Adnan Husseini, head of the Waqf, says that Israel plans to replace the mosque with the Third Temple. Moreover, he charges that there is a seven-step plan to destroy the mosque, and Israel has already implemented six of them, including clearing the Kotel plaza, building synagogues in the Old City and archaeological digs that are presumably meant to weaken the foundations of the mosque.

Of course, the idea that this is being planned is ludicrous.

But now that I had my tour of the area and see that the Al Aqsa Mosque is built completely on part of the Temple Mount that was expanded by Herod, and not near the "Holy of Holies," the idea of building a synagogue on one of the large open spaces on the southern part of the Mount doesn't bother me at all.

It is a sad fact that the idea of equal rights between Jews and Muslims on the Temple Mount is considered a crazy radical right-wing idea.

Islamists claiming IDF officer kicked a Quran on Temple Mount

The Al Aqsa Foundation, an organization that has no compunction about lying, claims that a female Israeli police officer kicked a Quran on Sunday while trying to move some women who were studying it. Other Islamic media are carrying this story as fact.

The Al Aqsa website claims to have photos and video of the incident, but none of the videos show anything remotely like that. All that can be seen is that the Israeli police are asking that they move their chairs and tables a couple of meters, and then the women start protesting.

The article at the Al Aqsa website helps explain what probably happened.

Apparently, in an attempt to stop all Jews from entering the Temple Mount, the women set up their "study groups" directly at the Moroccan Gate, the only entrance for non-Muslims at the Mount.

They normally study in the large plaza between the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Islamic Museum, where there is plenty of room, as I showed in the video tour of the Temple Mount I made last month. Israeli police then asked them to unblock the entrance, and they replied that they had the right to "study the Quran" anywhere they wanted to.

This appears to be another attempt to incite a third intifada, something that the Al Aqsa people have been trying to do for years by making up ludicrous rumors and incitement.

EoZ News Video: A visit to the Temple Mount

Here is the first of what I plan to be a series of videos taken during my current trip to Israel.

Last Thursday, I ascended to the most sacred place in Judaism, the Temple Mount, with Yisrael Medad (author of the My Right Word blog.) He has been there hundreds of times and he showed me around, literally - we circled the Dome of the Rock while staying in areas that most Jewish authorities allow visiting.

The video, about 34 minutes long, is almost real-time, with perhaps two or three minutes edited out.

I overlaid a satellite image of the Mount at various parts of the video so you can see where we are walking.

I hope you enjoy it!

"3D models of alleged Temple" drive Muslims nuts

This photo is prompting the latest freak-out by the Islamists who hate the idea of Jews on the Temple Mount:

Apparently, in the young man's hand is a tiny reproduction of one of the Jewish temples. He is leading a tour of the Temple Mount, and the Islamists' zoom lenses are looking very closely to see exactly what the Jews are up to.

This photo was also not received well by the haters:

Those Jews are up to something!

As QudsMedia fumes:

The campaign to falsify history pursued by the Israeli occupation in Jerusalem is resorted to by Jewish groups to hugely escalate promoting a lie or a temple through issuing models of a mini alleged structure in the courtyards of the Aqsa Mosque on Thursday morning that was presented to tourists and a group of settlers and provide a detailed explanation of alleged existence of the temple somewhere near the Dome of the Rock.

The Al-Aqsa Foundation considers these promotion campaigns for the alleged Temple led by Jewish groups to be a malignant example of Judaization and falsification of history and facts on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and confirmed its categorical rejection of that idea, stressing that they will not succeed in hiding or suppressing the obvious fact that confirms the right of Muslims alone in every inch of the Al Aqsa, as it reflects the extent of lies and quackery by the occupation on the myth of the alleged temple.

They seem a bit upset, don't they?

Now is a good time to revisit the wonderful pamphlet published by the Islamic Waqf in 1925 for visitors to the Mount, that says that "its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute." (page 4, paragraph 2.) The descriptions remained in later versions of the pamphlet, but were deleted in 1954.

1925 Wakf Temple Mount Guide

When a tree falls on the Temple Mount, does it blame the Jews?

The Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation site reports that some Temple Mount trees fell down during last week's rainstorms.

And it is the Jews' fault.

A preliminary examination by agricultural engineers hired by the Waqf determined that the reason the trees fell is the storm and strong winds in Jerusalem.

But the Al Aqsa Foundation knows better.

They report that engineer Mahmoud Abu Venema has formed a committee of engineers to determine that the trees really fell because of Zionist digging under Al Aqsa.

He also called on the Jordanian government to form an independent scientific committee, examining samples of roots of trees that fell January 7, and soil samples, to determine the exact causes of the fall of the trees, and to look at the possibility of the presence of chemicals or solvents, or traces of excavations under this trees, and to announce the result to the public.

As usual with these sorts of committees, the results are known way before the committee is even formed. Because the truth might be nice, but it too often gets in the way of the cause.

Muslims upset over prayers at Kotel HaKatan

I have occasionally written about the Kotel haKatan, the small area of the Western Wall that is rarely visited even though it is actually closer to the holiest area of the Temple Mount than the more famous Kotel is.

Yesterday afternoon there was a Jewish prayer service there for the occasion of the fast of the 10th of Tevet.

A Muslim took a video of these "Talmudic rituals" being performed and now there are articles are in today's Islamist media complaining about how this literally otherwise empty area is a holy Muslim spot called "the strap of the Kurds." Even the supposedly liberal Ma'an in Arabic complained about the "Talmudic rituals" being performed there.

For fun, I did a Google search on the "Strap of the Kurds" in Arabic. There are thousands of results, but every single one I could find was in articles about how Jews are trying to pray there.

Like the larger Kotel and so many other Muslim "holy sites," their importance is directly proportionate to how much other religions are interested in them.

Waqf destroying more priceless artifacts on Temple Mount

From Times of Israel:

The Muslim authority managing the Temple Mount on Sunday dumped tons of unexamined earth and stones excavated from the holy site into a municipal dump, in violation of a High Court injunction, Maariv reported on Monday.

Israel’s top court in September 2004 prohibited removal of earth from the Temple Mount and ruled that, should it be necessary, the Antiquities Authority must be notified a month in advance so it may examine the earth for artifacts.

Jews regard the Temple Mount as their holiest site, where the First and Second Temple were located. Muslims call it the Noble Sanctuary and regard it as their third holiest site after Mecca and Medina. According to the existing arrangement, the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, or trust, administers the Temple Mount complex.

Despite the High Court of Justice’s ruling, the Waqf has reportedly removed large piles of dirt from the Temple Mount in recent years and dumped them in the valley east of the Old City walls, provoking an outcry from biblical archaeologists and Jewish groups.

Tzachi Dvira, the archaeologist managing the team that sifts through soil excavated from the Temple Mount, told Maariv that mounds of earth containing historic relics were carted off and dumped on Sunday without notification and before archaeologists could investigate them.

Police claimed the removal of the soil was coordinated in advance. Dvira, however, said there were no Antiquities Authority officials on site, and the one police officer monitoring the operation had no idea of its significance.

Heavy earth moving equipment on the Temple Mount

Soil from the Temple Mount that had been removed to the Kidron Valley in recent years has yielded “tens of thousands of finds, including signet rings from the First Temple era, painted floor tiles from the Second Temple era, ancient gold coins, and horseshoe nails and arrowheads belonging to the Knights Templar, who stabled their horses in Solomon’s Stables,” Dvira said.

This video of the material actually being dumped shows what are undoubtedly carved stones.

The Israeli government is clearly giving the Waqf a wide berth to destroy any vestiges of Jewish history on the Temple Mount, apparently to avoid trouble. This is dangerously shortsighted.

The most valuable artifacts in the world are being wantonly destroyed by racists and Israel, which is supposed to guard Jewish heritage, is looking the other way.

I know - we can ask UNESCO to intervene! That's their job, right? They wouldn't stand by while priceless cultural and religious artifacts are being destroyed, would they?

(h/t Yoel and Yisrael Medad)

Photos of Jews "desecrating" Temple Mount for Chanukah

Arab media is livid - as always - that Jews have the audacity to visit the site of the first and second Temples, especially during a holiday that celebrates the re-dedication of that same Temple.

Qudsmedia notes - correctly - that the Jews are making visiting the site a daily occurrence, with the intent that it is considered a basic right and that Arabs would get used to it. The Muslims are bringing in lots of Muslim students from schools on field trips to strengthen their own presence there.

More than sixty settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque before prayers Monday afternoon via the Mughrabi Gate, and organized a tour in various parts of the al-Aqsa mosque interspersed with performing some biblical and Talmudic rituals, all amid tight security by the occupation forces. They were storming collectively and in two batches, and an atmosphere of tension and anger to this intrusion and desecration prevailed, in the presence of hundreds of Muslim students in the project to revive interest in the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Here are a couple of photos of the evil Jewish desecrators, in what looks like a nice Chanukah field trip:

The first minyan on the Temple Mount in 913 years (updated - not quite)

Something rather momentous happened on Monday.

A group of ten Jewish men prayed together on the Temple Mount.

From Times of Israel:

Likud politician Moshe Feiglin on Monday violated the unwritten rule that prohibits Jews from practicing religion on the Temple Mount, as he prayed at the holy site.

Feiglin, a political hard-liner, is No. 15 on the Likud list for the upcoming elections and head of the Jewish Leadership faction within the right-wing party, a nationalist group defined by many as extreme.

Footage obtained by Channel 10 showed a group of Jews, including the likely future MK, as they prayed on the Temple Mount.

Though there is no law against Jews praying on the Temple Mount, for years both Israeli officials and the Islamic Wakf — the religious group in charge of managing the site — have told Jews not to carry out religious ceremonies or prayers at the site, for fear of violence and a potential outbreak of riots.

The video makes it clear that this wasn't a few people praying - this was a minyan, as opposed to other times that individuals prayed on the Har HaBayit.

When was the last time there was a minyan on the Temple Mount? One might think it was before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, but there is much evidence that Jews visited the site, off and on, for hundreds of years afterwards through the Byzantine era. In a fascinating paper by Gedalia Meyer and Henoch Messner about the halacha and history of Jews visiting the Temple Mount, we learn:

Following the Arab conquest we have very little information concerning Jewish activity on the Temple Mount. Unlike during Byzantine times, there is no indication that the Muslims prohibited Jewish visitation to the site. The first solid report of what was going on during this time comes in the early 12th century when Jerusalem was already in the hands of the Crusaders. This report is found in a rarely referenced book called Megilas Hamegila by Avraham ben Chiya. He was a rabbi who is believed to have lived in Barcelona and was occasionally quoted by the Abarbanel, among others.

On page 99, he mentions that the Arabs had good relations with the Jews. He says that the Jews were even permitted to have a synagogue on the Temple Mount, which they used on holidays to serve in place of the sacrifices that had been offered in the Beis Hamikdash.

This synagogue was destroyed when the Crusaders came [in 1099], and since that time the Jews were prohibited from entering the Temple Mount area.

The fact that there was an actual, functioning synagogue on the Temple Mount in the 11th century is not well known.

Any way you look at it, this visit on Monday was historic.

The Islamic media noted that Feiglin visited, and that he "attempted to perform Jewish and Talmudic rituals," but there has been no note about the prayer quorum. Certainly there have been no riots as Muslims have threatened for years.

(h/t Yerushalimey)

UPDATE: There was a minyan for several days on the Temple Mount when Jerusalem was liberated in 1967. From a letter by Rabbi Shlomo Goren, chief rabbi at the time:

In the framework of the function of the Military Rabbinate, we held organized study and prayer on the Temple Mount -- Shacharit (morning service), Mincha (afternoon service), and Ma'ariv (evening service), and Torah reading on Shabbat, Monday, and Thursday on the Temple Mount Plaza itself, inside the Mugrabi Gate, near our study center. Once, the Waqaf people tried to close the Shevatim Gate, on the northeastern end of the Temple Mount, from a gathering of officers of the Military Rabbinate that was held on the Temple Mount. We broke through the gate and entered. That taught them the Temple Mount is ours officially and practically.

On the 9th of Av, 5727 (1967 CE), I held a Mincha service for a small group on the Temple Mount Plaza across from the steps going up south of the Dome of the Rock, a place that is permissible to enter according to all Halachic authorities. This Mincha service on the 9th of Av on the Temple Mount raised many reactions in the media in Israel and abroad. Jewish writers hostile to religion in the State started incitement against our efforts to renew Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount.

In the midst of deliberations, in both governmental and religious frameworks, about renewing Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount and building a permanent synagogue on the open southern plain, the Minister of Defense told me, to my great surprise, that he decided to pass the auspices and responsibilities for all arrangements on the Temple Mount to the Islamic Waqaf. He ordered me to take the Torah study center of the Military Rabbinate down from the Temple Mount and to remove all officers of the Temple Mount. From then on, according to him, the Military Rabbinate has no responsibility for the arrangements there, and I should stop organizing Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. I accepted the order with anger and pain, and I told the Minister of Defense that this is likely to bring about a third destruction, since the key to our sovereignty over Judea, Samaria, and Gaza is the Temple Mount.

(h/t Dr. Mike Cohen)

Arab "researcher" upset that UNESCO doesn't (yet) deny Second Temple

Jordanian newspaper Assabeel quotes an Arab "researcher" who is livid that there are Hebrew signs in Jerusalem pointing out where Second Temple-era sights can be found.

Fakhri Abu Diab is aghast that Israeli authorities have put up signs on archaeological and historical sites "in the northern part of Silwan, just tens of meters from the southern wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque," - meaning around City of David and close to the Temple Mount.

Abu Diab, who has read a bit too much anti-semitic propaganda, further says that the Israelia are trying to push the idea that the Temple was located near this area. He said the move is "an attempt to falsify history and monuments, and target awareness for future generations and to brainwash visitors and tourists... to erase the truth and the Arab and Muslim nature of these historical places, and rework and rewrite the history of the Hebrew forgers. "

He stressed that the falsification of history and archeology "comes at the hands of the occupation authorities, after Jewish archaeologists have confirmed the fact there is no history of Jews in Jerusalem, despite long years of research and exploration in the corners of the city to prove its Jewishness."

Abu Diab pointed out that "this fraud takes place" right under the nose of the world! He is especially upset at UNESCO, who refuses to deny the fact that a Temple existed in Jerusalem or to condemn Israelis saying that there was.

I would laugh at the idea of UNESCO denying the Temple, but then again UNESCO believes the provable lie that Rachel's Tomb is the "historic Bilal bin Rabah mosque." Similarly, UNESCO has no idea what the Western Wall actually is.

So the idea that UNESCO might one day deny the existence of Jewish Temples in Jerusalem is all too believable. After all, the ultimate goal of the PLO joining UNESCO to begin with was to ban Jews from worshiping in their own holiest sites, and denying their existence is a step in that direction.

LA Times: More Jews praying on Temple Mount (updated)

Not a bad report - with the glaring exception of the media believing Muslim lies without checking:

A simple, ancient ritual is threatening the delicate security balance atop Jerusalem's most sacred plaza: Jews are praying.

On most days, dozens — sometimes hundreds — of Jewish worshipers ascend to the disputed 36-acre platform that Muslims venerate as Al Aqsa mosque and Jews revere as the Temple Mount with an Israeli police escort to protect them and a Muslim security guard to monitor their movements.

Then, they recite a quick prayer, sometimes quietly to themselves, other times out loud.

Jewish activists call the prayers harmless acts of faith. Police and Muslim officials see them as dangerous provocations, especially given the deep religious sensitivities of the site and its history of violence. Twelve years ago, the presence of Jews on the plaza was so controversial that a brief tour by Israeli politician Ariel Sharon helped trigger a Palestinian uprising that lasted more than four years. [Lie #1]

But today Jewish worshipers are commonplace, coming in greater numbers than at any time since Israel's founding and perhaps, some scholars say, as far back as half a millennium ago. Their goal? To challenge the Israeli government's tacit acceptance and enforcement of a ban on Jews praying there by the Islamic trust that has continued to administer the site even after Israel captured the Old City in 1967.

Jewish visits to the plaza are expected to surpass 12,000 this year, up 30% from 2011, according to estimates by Jewish worshiper groups.

"What is provocative about a person wanting to pray?" Rabbi Chaim Richman asked after defying mainstream rabbinical religious rulings and risking arrest by praying on a recent morning near the golden Dome of the Rock. The world's oldest surviving Islamic monument, it's built atop the site where Jews believe their first temple held the Ten Commandments.

"It's the most basic human right," said Richman, international director of the Temple Institute. "I'm not asking to build a temple. I'm just asking to move my lips."

His group and others that advocate the rebuilding of a Jewish temple have often been dismissed by other Israelis and the international community as extremists and zealots who seek to destroy the Dome and the nearby Al Aqsa mosque. Now they are betting this prayer campaign will give their cause more mainstream support, portraying it as a matter of religious equality and free speech.

How can it be, they ask, that in the state of Israel, Jews and Christians are banned from praying at Judaism's holiest site, while Muslims can worship freely? Even the U.S. State Department has cited Israel's ban on non-Muslim prayer on the plaza in its annual report on religious freedom, they note.

The groups want the Israeli government to implement a time-sharing plan that would set aside certain hours for Jewish worship, similar to one used to divide Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs, a holy site for Muslims and Jews.

Palestinians and Muslim leaders call the prayer campaign the latest ruse designed to instigate clashes so that Israel can justify putting the plaza under military control.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas this month accused Israel of launching a "fierce assault" on the mosque after soldiers broke up a Muslim riot triggered by a group of Jewish worshipers. [Lie #2]

Jordan, which has maintained day-to-day supervision of the plaza through an Islamic trust called the Waqf, is asking the U.N.'s cultural body, UNESCO, to condemn Israel for permitting an increase in Jewish prayers.

"The Israeli strategy is to take it over," said Mahdi Abdul Hadi, chairman of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, a Jerusalem think tank. "We don't want to share, not because we don't accept them, but because we don't trust them." He said the Hebron agreement was supposed to result in sharing, but it led to bloody clashes between Jews and Muslims, and finally a military takeover. [Lie #3]

Hadi also noted that temple-rebuilding extremists set fire to Al Aqsa mosque in 1969 and plotted to bomb the Dome of the Rock in the 1980s. [Lie #4]

Jewish prayer at the Jerusalem holy site is certainly not new, but it has been rarely seen during the last 2,000 years. After the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70, a Jewish presence on the plaza was mostly banned or severely limited during Christian and Islamic rule.

Under the Ottoman Empire, Jews were given access to the Western Wall — believed to be a remnant of the Second Temple compound — but banned from the plaza above, which was reserved for Muslims only, according to Israeli historian F.M. Loewenberg.

Even after Israel took control of East Jerusalem in 1967, most Jews stayed away because of rabbinical prohibitions that warned them against visiting the site lest they inadvertently step on hallowed ground.

In recent years, however, a small but growing number of rabbis have softened that position. At the same time, national religious groups have argued that Israel should exert greater control over what is considered Judaism's holiest site.

In 2000, Jewish visitors were allowed onto the plaza only in groups of two or three at a time and even moving lips in silent prayer might led to arrest, Jewish activists say. Today Jewish groups as large as 150 are allowed to roam the plaza, sometimes drawing nothing more than cold stares and quiet curses from Muslims.

But instead of furtive prayers when police aren't looking, more worshipers are sometimes singing and lying on the ground in keeping with Jewish traditions. Such overt prayer often sparks clashes with Muslims, as occurred this month during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot when a right-wing Israeli politician was arrested for praying.

Police officials say they oppose any attempt to allow non-Muslim prayer on the plaza.

"As soon as that takes place, it causes a response from Israeli Arabs, and the Israeli police have to respond and separate them," said Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. "Our aim is to keep the status quo and make sure the different religions can use and respect the site."

Right-wing Israeli lawmaker Arieh Eldad, who recently drafted a bill to impose a time-sharing plan that would allow Jews to pray at specified times, accused Palestinians of using the threat of violence to keep the plaza to themselves.

"Muslims are blackmailing the West, saying they will burn, riot and murder if we practice our right of freedom of speech," he said.

Temple group activists say their strategy is to keep praying and getting arrested, hoping Israeli courts will force the government to drop the ban.

Israel's Supreme Court upheld the right of Jews to pray on the plaza, but gave police broad latitude to restrict access in the name of security. Muslim males younger than 45 are also sometimes banned from the holy site for security reasons.

"We're focusing on prayer for the next year," said Aviad Visuli, a Haifa attorney who represents Jewish activists. "It's something nobody can object to."

Waqf leaders in Jerusalem declined to speak publicly, citing the sensitivity of the issue. But one Waqf official warned that Palestinian and Arab Israeli worshipers are increasingly uneasy over the prospect of sharing the plaza.

"This is a Muslim site," the official said. "If the police don't stop this, the people will. For Muslims, this is a red line."

Arab lie #1:
At least the authors wrote Sharon's visit "helped trigger" instead of "triggered" the second intifada, but the fact is that the riots were planned for months before Sharon's visit. From a December 2000 speech to the UN by the Israeli ambassador:

It now seems as if the leading role that the Palestinian leadership has played in the current spate of violence is finally being admitted. The Palestinian semi-official daily Al Ayyam reported on 6 December that Palestinian Minister of Communications, Imad Al Falouji, confirmed that the Palestinian Authority had begun preparations for the outbreak of the current intifada from the moment the Camp David talks concluded, this in accordance with instructions given by Chairman Arafat himself. Mr. Falouji went on to state that Arafat launched this intifada as the culminating stage of "Palestinian steadfastness" in the negotiations, and not merely as a protest of Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount (Al-Ayyam, 6 December 2000)

Arab lie #2:
From reading the Arab media, while they complain about "Talmudic rituals" on the Temple Mount, it is the mere presence of Jews there that cause them to protest - not the prayers. They will fill their newspapers with photos of "Jewish desecrators" who are merely walking around.

Arab lie #3:
The massacre at the Cave of the Patriarchs [1994] preceded the Hebron agreement in the Wye River Accords [1996.] It wasn't that the agreement caused the massacre.

However, there were plenty of horrid terror attacks by Arabs against the Jews of Hebron after the Accords. For example, the 1998 murders of Rabbi Shlomo Ra'anan (stabbed in his bedroom) and Danny Vargas, or the 2001 murder of 10-month old Shalhevet Pass.

The idea that Wye River was an Arab gesture of wanting to live peacefully with Jews is an outrageous lie.

Arab lie #4:
While there was a Jewish plot to bomb the Al Aqsa mosque in the 1980s, the 1969 attack was done by an unhinged Christian, not Jews, as implied here.

UPDATE: CAMERA found some other problems with the article, including - most egregiously - the headline.

Spot the Desecrator!

The Al Aqsa Foundation website has another set of photos of people "desecrating" the Temple Mount.

Here is one of them:

Now, who are the desecrators?

Obviously, only the women who are dressed respectfully. Not the boys who are hanging out their "third holiest site" acting as if it is a soccer stadium.

Because, according to the Muslims, if you are Jewish, then you are by definition desecrating your surroundings with your very presence.

Here's a fundraising idea for the Arabs "defending Jerusalem"

Every so often, I come across Arabic sites that talk about various Muslim organizations are raising funds to "defend Jerusalem." While they raise millions of dollars, it is never enough. (I have a sneaking suspicion that there is not much transparency in these supposed charities, and that a great deal of the money raised ends up in pious people's pockets.)

But I have a win-win idea that can help them raise funds.

You know how when you go on an amusement park ride, or embark on a boat ride, people take pictures of you and your significant other to sell it to you as a souvenir of your trip?

Well, the Islamists are already taking tons of photos of unsuspecting Jews who visit the Temple Mount. Like this one from today, for example:

That could be a great souvenir shot that this couple can show their grandchildren! Why put it on the Internet for free when you can charge a few shekels for it? Maybe make a cheap plastic commemorative frame to jack up the price!

Islamists can make trinkets that say "I did a Talmudic ritual - in Islam's third holiest place!", "Proud Settler" and "I'm a usurper par excellence!"

This will help the economy of Arab Jerusalem more than any number of unpaid pledges.

Muslims should take some of the spaces they use now for volleyball nets on the Temple Mount and build a gift shop to fleece those usurping Jews. Everyone will end up happy.

Those storming Jews keep visiting their holiest place

Palestine Today says

Monday morning, a number of settlers stormed the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque from the Mughrabi Gate.

A guards of the holy mosque told our correspondent that the storming operation was still continuing, accompanied by reinforced elements of special police units of the occupation to provide protection and escort for suspicious settlers during their tours in the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The guard pointed out that a number of extremists performed Talmudic rituals and rites in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque today.

Yesterday, the Al Aqsa Foundation said that some 30 Israeli police "stormed" the Temple Mount, apparently to protect a small group of Jews who they photographed.

The biggest story on the Al Aqsa site is that during September, the anti-semitic Arabs counted some 1300 "settlers" "desecrating" Judaism's holiest spot, amongst tens of thousands of Muslims and several thousand foreign tourists.

The Muslim leaders are now encouraging Muslims schools to go on field trips to the Mount in order to counterbalance the few dozens of Jews visiting the area with hundreds of bored Arab schoolkids.

The Foundation points out that the Jews are trying to make Jewish visits a normal thing so that they get used to it and the outrage will naturally dissipate, and they promise they will never let that happen. But of course, it already is, as the general Arabic media has been reducing their coverage of the visits, albeit slowly, and the Al Aqsa Foundation needs to fabricate outrageous claims in order to get their daily screeds noticed.

I wonder if any pro-Palestinian Arab "human rights" groups support the rights of Jews to freely visit - and pray at - the Temple Mount. So far, I haven't seen any, nor any mention of this in HRW or Amnesty's websites.